27 Facts About Gordon Vereker

Sir George Gordon Medlicott Vereker was a British diplomat.

Gordon Vereker was usually known as Gordon instead of George.

Gordon Vereker was educated at Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Gordon Vereker won the Epee title at the 1913 British Fencing Championships.

Gordon Vereker served in the British Army in World War One where he awarded the Military Cross and was mentioned in dispatches for heroism under fire.

On 16 May 1936, the French ambassador to the Soviet Union, Robert Coulondre met Gordon Vereker to talk to him about settling up an Anglo-Franco-Soviet alliance to contain Nazi Germany.

On 10 January 1939, Gordon Vereker reported to London his belief that the "Ukrainian question is no doubt seriously exercising the mind of the Soviet government".

On 13 November 1939, Lawrence Steinhardt, the American ambassador in Moscow, reported that he talked to Gordon Vereker who told him that he believed Britain should have broken diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union following the invasion of Finland, but decided not since the last time Britain had broken off relations with Moscow in 1927 had served no purpose.

In late 1939, Gordon Vereker was appointed the British minister in La Paz.

On 24 February 1940, Gordon Vereker had to present his credentials to President Kyosti Kallio during a Red Air Force bombing raid.

Gordon Vereker stated that the British forces would go to the southern front in Karelia instead of the northern front above the Arctic Circle.

Gordon Vereker felt that the governments in Oslo and Stockholm would be more be likely to grant transit rights if the appeal came from a fellow Scandinavian power instead of Britain.

On 27 February 1940, Gordon Vereker was informed by London that there were rumors that the Finns had opened peace talks with the Soviets owing to their recent defeats, and he was instructed to find out if this was true or not.

On 28 February 1940, Gordon Vereker met with Tanner to ask him to continue the war and pressured him into making an appeal for British aid.

On 3 March 1940, Gordon Vereker again lowered the number of men available, teling Tanner that only 6,000 British troops would go to Finland.

Gordon Vereker believed that if he promised a larger force, then the Finns would be more likely to make the appeal for British aid, and thus the Norwegian and Swedish governments would be more likely to grant transit rights.

On 4 March 1940, Gordon Vereker again met with Tanner to ask him to break off the peace talks and to appeal for British aid, which he again refused to do.

Gordon Vereker's idea was rejected under the grounds that the Foreign Office could not afford to be buying oranges in South Africa to hand out for free in Finland.

Gordon Vereker suggested that British naval forces enter the Baltic Sea to occupy the Swedish island of Faro to establish a naval base to support Finland, a suggestion that was immediately shot down in London at a meeting on 21 March 1940 under the grounds that if British forces entered the Baltic, Germany would occupy Denmark and mine the Danish straits that linked the Baltic to the North Sea, thereby cutting them off.

Gordon Vereker founded a newspaper, The Review of the British Press, consisting of various newspaper articles from various British "quality" newspapers translated into Finnish and Swedish.

Gordon Vereker reported that German propaganda in Finland was unconvincing, making such claims that the Royal Family had fled Britain to Canada, which he rebutted by publishing photos showing that King George VI, Queen Elizabeth, and their two daughters, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret were still living in London.

Gordon Vereker sympathised with the Finnish government, but warned that Britain expected Finland to honor the concession and made it clear that he did not want any of the nickel from Petsamo to go to Germany.

Gordon Vereker stated that if the Finns felt compelled to nationalise the mine, he would much prefer the nickel to go to the Soviet Union rather than Germany.

When Finland granted transit rights for German forces, Gordon Vereker downplayed the significance of this, saying that a prominent Helsinki society lady had told she was "sleeping easier now with Germans in Finland instead of Russians".

In 1944, Britain and Uruguay agreed to upgrade their relations from the legation level to the embassy level, and Gordon Vereker became the first British ambassador to Uruguay.

In 1944, Gordon Vereker was involved in blocking an American plan to exchange the Germans interned in Uruguay for European Jews who held Uruguayan passports, an effort which floundered over the inability to determine which Germans held in Uruguay would be of no value to the war effort, and the fear of the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, that the Jews released go to Palestine instead of Uruguay.

On 11 August 1947, in a public letter Gordon Vereker thanked Alberto Guani, the Uruguayan foreign minister in 1939, for interning the crew of the Admiral Graf von Spree after the Battle of the Rio Plate.